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Tim; Where Have You Been?

As you can see from the date of my last blog post you can understand why people were thinking about putting my face on the back of a milk container. No I’m not missing, just very, very busy.
Prior to the running of this year’s Boilermaker, the Tuesday before to be exact, I was approached to take the position of Interim Executive Director of our local United Way. The former Exec had just resigned and they thought I’d be just the right guy for the job. After I picked myself off the ground I gently reminded the requestor that I had an event on Sunday that required a bit of my attention. His response was ‘Oh, take a week to think about it’. Great, they wanted an answer two days after the race. Traditionally at that time my brain was trying to recalibrate itself after the sensory overload of Boilermaker Weekend.
Well, after the race was over I met with the recruitment committee and accepted the position, with one big stipulation. That stipulation was I don’t want to be the next full-time United Way guy, I love the race and to the race I shall ‘run’ after they find their person. In line with that was that while the race needs clearly slow down after the event lots of stuff still needs to be done and I needed time to do it. They agreed.
Now it’s roughly five months later and I can say it’s been quite an experience! Some observations:
Doing two jobs is sort of like being the plate spinning guy on the Ed Sullivan Show. For those too young to remember look it up on youtube. When I signed up for the United Way I also signed up for running the Annual Campaign!
It’s been interesting dealing with managing staff again. The Boilermaker office is quite small with only 2 full time staff (including myself) and 4 part time. At United Way I have 6 full time, 3 part time and myself.
Where both organizations are incredibly similar is the heavy dependence on volunteers; neither would exist without the support of these unsung heroes. At the Boilermaker it’s volunteers who pass out the water, at the United Way it’s volunteers who pass out the money!
The Campaign has been long with the expected ups and downs. Workplace presentations, often at odd hours, delivered to groups as large as a hundred down to a handful.
Oh and we ended up getting the United Way building sold and found a new home that we have to be in by April 2011.
I return to the Boilermaker in January, clearly a little weary, but with some really great memories.